“Allow me to wing for him,” said Furlong, rushing to the bell.
“Stop!” exclaimed the dowager, levelling her pistol at the bell-pull; “touch it, and you are a dead man!”
Furlong stood riveted to the spot where his rush had been arrested.
“No interruption, sir, till this little affair is settled. Here is my friend,” she added, putting her hand into her pocket and pulling out the wooden cuckoo of her clock. “My little bird, sir, will see fair between us;” and she perched the painted wooden thing, with a bit of feather grotesquely sticking up out of its nether end, on the morocco letter-case.
“Oh, Lord!” said Furlong.
“He's a gentleman of the nicest honour, sir!” said the dowager, pacing back to the window.
Furlong took advantage of the opportunity of her back being turned, and rushed at the bell, which he pulled with great fury.
The dowager wheeled round with haste. “So you have rung,” said she, “but it shall not avail you—the door is locked; take your weapon, sir,—quick!—what!—a coward!”
“Weally, Mistwess O'Gwady, I cannot think of deadly arbitrament with a lady.”
“Less would you like it with a man, poltroon!” said she, with an exaggerated expression of contempt in her manner. “However,” she added, “if you are a coward, you shall have a coward's punishment.” She went to a corner where stood a great variety of handsome canes, and laying hold of one, began soundly to thrash Furlong, who feared to make any resistance or attempt to disarm her of the cane, for the pistol was yet in her other hand.